In No Exit there are a number of instances where the characters ask for those on earth to cry for them. While watching her own funeral, Estelle says, "[My sister is] trying her best to cry. Come, dear! Make another effort. That's better. Two tears, two little tears [...] [Olga is] not crying, and I don't blame her, tears always mess one's face up, don't they?" (11). Garcin wants his wife to shed tears for him even though he had abused her for five years: "Now, can't you shed a tear, my love! Surely you'll squeeze one out—at last? No? You can't manage it?" (24).
These quotes remind me of a line in Baudelaire's "To the Reader": "We pray for tears to wash our filthiness, / importantly pissing hogwash through our styes."
I think this line relates to the No Exit quotes mentioned above because I feel like Estelle and Garcin want people on earth to feel sympathy for them. Although they know that they are covered with filth for what they did in life, maybe those tears of sympathy can help wash their feelings of regret and fear.
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2 comments:
I think you have a really good point with the Baudelaire comparison, Jun. We talked about how people use tears as a means of washing their hands of emotional turmoil, and that wishing for tears is kind of cheating the system in a way. So, I think the fact that the characters in No Exit are praying for other people to cry for them is kind of doubling up on this disingenuous way of freeing yourself from your wrongdoings. Not only do they not really regret what they did, but they might even want the others to cry as a means of validating their life.
Both of you bring up really good points here, but one thing I think both of yall may have looked over is that at one point in the play one character tries to cry while in hell but learns that they cannot cry. This goes what you were saying Jun about forcing tears and that on Earth they may have been able to force tears, but in hell they cannot cry even without trying to force tears upon themselves. Because the characters are in hell and have no hope of redemption or saving, they cannot cry to wash themselves clean of their sins, one of the things one must do to avoid the eternal torture they have found themselves in.
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